Udāyin is of the view
that the unenlightened Nanda expresses in Saundara-nanda Canto 7,
which is namely that a male would-be celibate is liable to be
helpless to resist the wiles of an attractive woman.

In expressing this
view, Nanda also cites the example of Ṛṣya-śṛṅga and Śāntā:

Again, on catching
sight of the princess Śāntā, 'Tranquillity,' though he had been
living in tranquillity in the forest, / The sage Ṛṣya-śṛṅga,
'Antelope Horn,' was moved from steadfastness, like a high-horned
mountain in an earthquake. // SN7.34 //

But also implicit in
today's verse is another view; namely, that the likes of Dīrgha-tapas
and Ṛṣya-śṛṅga were particularly vulnerable because of not
knowing how women really are. In suggesting this, Udāyin is singing
from the same hymn sheet as the Buddhist striver in Saundara-nanda
Canto 8 in his tirade against women.

Hence the striver, who
evidently IS an expert on women (strīṣu
paṇḍitam), at least in his own mind, asks Nanda:

So you fail to see how
pernicious, in their intense duplicity, are their little lightweight
hearts? / Do you not see, at least, that the bodies of women are
impure, oozing houses of foulness? // SN8.47 //

And again:

In
nails and in teeth, in skin, and in hair, both long and short, which
are not beautiful, you are inventing beauty. / Dullard! Do you
not see what women originally are made of and what they originally
are? // SN8.54 // So then, reckon women, in mind and
in body, to be singularly implicated with faults; / And hold back, by
the power of this reckoning, the mind which strains so impulsively
for home. // SN8.55 //

Because
Aśvaghoṣa allows such views to be eloquently expressed in his
poetry, a woman of scant attention who proudly considers herself to
be "feminist" is liable to suspect that Aśvaghoṣa
himself might be a man who harbours a sexist view of women.

I say
that a person like that is not thinkingly stupidly because she is a
woman. She is thinkingly stupidly because of not paying due attention
to the teaching that Aśvaghoṣa is actually endeavoring to convey.

Aśvaghoṣa
gives us such true-to-life portrayals of the likes of the young
brahmin Udāyin and the Buddhist striver, not because he has any time
for their view, or for any view, but because he wishes to contrast
their views with the teaching of the teacher who taught the true
dharma as the abandonment of all views.

Thus,
while the likes of Udāyin and the striver advocate being awake to
the wiles of women, the Buddha solely advocates being awake to the
four noble truths:

Giving oneself to this
path with its three divisions and eight branches -- this
straightforward, irremovable, noble path -- / One abandons the
faults, which are the causes of suffering, and comes to that step
which is total well-being. // SN16.37 //
Attendant on it are constancy and straightness; modesty,
attentiveness, and reclusiveness; / Wanting little,
contentment, and freedom from forming attachments; no fondness for
worldly activity, and forbearance. // 16.38 // For he who knows
suffering as it really is, who knows its starting and its stopping:
/ It is he who reaches peace by the noble path -- going along
with friends in the good. // 16.39 // He who fully appreciates his
illness, as the illness it is, who sees the cause of the illness and
its remedy: / It is he who wins, before long, freedom from disease --
attended by friends in the know. // 16.40 // So with regard to the
truth of suffering, see suffering as an illness; with regard to the
faults, see the faults as the cause of the illness; / With regard to
the truth of stopping, see stopping as freedom from disease; and with
regard to the truth of a path, see a path as a remedy. //
16.41 // Comprehend, therefore, that suffering is doing;
witness the faults impelling it forward; / Realise its stopping as
non-doing; and know the path as a turning back. //
16.42 // Though your head and clothes be on fire direct your
mind so as to be awake to the truths. / For in failing to see the
purport of the truths, the world has burned, it is burning now, and
it will burn. // SN16.43 //

VOCABULARY

ṛṣya-śṛṅgam
(acc. sg.): m. 'Antelope Horn'

ṛṣya:
m. the male of a species of antelope , the painted or white-footed
antelope